


what you see is what you get, so look away

by Dovey



Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 19:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14700768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dovey/pseuds/Dovey
Summary: a warmup piece i wrote trying to make a Kakashi who's not so oblivious.





	what you see is what you get, so look away

Kakashi knows, unfortunately, that Sakura is the most like him in all the worst ways.

Sasuke is powerful. Sasuke is powerful and bitter and has a heritage that makes him a key part of Konoha’s history, and he’s beautiful, and in all of these ways he’s like Kakashi, but all of these things also mean he is  _ important.  _ Sasuke abandons the village and is wanted back alive because his eyes are so valuable and his beauty and importance has managed to win over so many people who might otherwise let him die a traitor. Sasuke is, before anything else, valuable. This means he’s allowed to be cruel. He’s allowed to be selfish. Sasuke leaves and returns to the village when he wants, how he wants, and if he wants to burn down the village for his own moral reasons, the boy will be welcomed back regardless because he’s worth keeping around. 

Naruto is beyond power. He’s invincible. He’s allowed to have the kind of morals others only dream of, because he can take a thousand hits and keep standing. He can afford to make enemies into friends because they can’t hurt him if he’s wrong, they can’t do anything to him that sticks. Naruto is kind because he is alive, and he’s alive because the boy  _ cannot die.  _ So he can judge the world with a childish measuring stick of values, because Naruto never had to grow up and face unfortunate truths. There’s no too far or too long or too bad for a boy who can chase the sun and catch it. Naruto is nothing like Kakashi and never has been. He’s nothing like anyone, really, because they put a god in his stomach and taught him school child values and he’s never had to change since then. 

But Sakura is weak. She is fragile. She is, before all else, expendable. Sakura is a girl with no history to give her worth, no secret gift to keep her alive. She’s in the background of everyone else’s story, struggling to survive, and almost none of this is like Kakashi. Kakashi the prodigy. Kakashi the Copycat. Kakashi, who was born with the white fang legacy and the repercussions of that legacy souring. But they’re both mortal, in a way her teammates are not, and this is what makes Sakura look so frighteningly like a reflection of himself- Sakura can die. Sakura can lose. Sakura can falter and pay the price, and she can’t afford to cart around morals that would slow her down.

He can see it happening despite himself. He tries to look away, and he can’t. He sees her around the village, turning guant and fierce in turn, a ghost of the girl with her heart on her sleeve that he’d first met far too recently. She gets scars. She gets angry. Sakura Haruno serves her village, and it’s slowly killing her. She walks like she’s on a tightrope, always one step away from falling over the edge or setting off a minefield, and she spends her times struggling to keep up with the people around her who are gifted with the kind of power she can only dream of. The only way to keep up is to turn vicious and conniving, into a clever beast with no morals on the battlefield. She takes out eyes and aims for limps, spits on corpses and loots from enemies. She has to take on the worst missions of the village, the type that important people can refuse, and she learns that these things aren’t half as bad as she thought because dead bodies can’t judge and she’s had to do far more horrible, haunting things in the name of Konoha anyways. 

Naruto and Sasuke can afford to put themselves first, their ethics, their dreams, their personal vendettas. Sakura can’t. She’s nothing but a husk of a man that hides a frantic beast inside. Kakashi wouldn’t be surprised if she got along well with the Kyuubi- chained up monsters hidden away in little shells called people.

Sakura is most like Kakashi because there’s no such thing as a mission she’d refuse. She does what she’s told, damn her morals, until there’s nothing left of them but tatters. When their team walks through the village, civilians whisper about the last Uchiha and the Jinchuuriki. 

Anbu know better. They stare at the dog and the wasp trailing behind them, teeth barred in a mockery of smiles and hands resting on weapons at their sides. Self-made monsters might never be as strong as the gods that walk beside them, but they’ll cheat their way to a win or die trying. Keep a close eye on the weak that live too long, because you never know when they’ll snap. 

The Uchiha and Uzumaki have never bothered to look behind them. So used to the pair from their past dragging in their wake, left distant by contests of strength and prowess. They’ve never learned the feel of a knife pressed to their back. So long as Konoha does not require it, they never will.

But if Konoha does- well. Kakashi has always known that Sakura is like him in the worst ways. They’re loyal Konoha shinobi to their core, in a way many claim and few possess. They do what they must for the village. 

They’re unlucky creatures, with such a fickle master, but they’ll always do what they’re told. 

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i feel like by the end of the manga the only person sakura is/should be loyal to is tsunade, not even konoha. but here's a shot at an understanding of canon that might even work for fixing the boruto stuff with her- why is she married to an asshole who doesn't seem to love her? makes it easier to murder him if she has to. Why is she okay with him suddenly showing up and trying to be a dad? anything to make sarada, Future Of The Village stronger and have a wider range of skills. (shes not pretending to love sarada tho, thats genuine, and shed LOVE for the girl to become future hokage just saying.) why is she in charge of the hospital and not doing shit with her apparently IMMENSE power level? she is, she's just not public about it. Presumably naruto is a puppet-head hokage given his inability to make a single tough decision in his life, ever, and the actual Hokage is still kakashi or maybe Ibikki or like, literally anyone with experience in the matter of "making a choice for the greater good". anyways shes definitely fucking gaara on the weekends n thats a fact, thank you for coming to my ridiculous ted talk, im almost done with the update for dangerous habits lmao


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